Introduction to ethnographic methods

What are ethnographic methods?

Ethnographic methods are a research approach that looks at:

people in their cultural setting;

their deeds as well as their words;

the implicit as well as the explicit;

the way in which they interact with one another and with their social and cultural environment;

what is not said as much as what is said;

their language, and the symbols, rituals and shared meanings that populate their world, with the
object of producing a narrative account of that particular culture, against a theoretical backdrop.

Examples

"Ethnographic research allows us to regard and represent the actors as creators as well as executants
of their own meanings. The very way in which they tell us about what they do tells the researcher a
great deal about what is meaningful for and in the research. It adds richness and texture to the
experience of conducting research."

(Stuart Hannabuss,"Being there: ethnographic research and autobiography", Library Management,

Vol. 21 No. 2)

"Generally speaking, ethnographic studies allow researchers to immerse themselves within their
chosen empirical setting for long periods. During this time the researcher’s experience, in terms of his
or her participation and/or observation at the research site, is used to generate a narrative-based
interpretation of the events that took place."

(Colin Dey, "Methodological issues: the use of critical ethnography as an active research
methodology", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 15 No. 1)

In "Using ethnography in strategic consumer research" (Qualitative Market Research: An International

Journal, Vol. 6 No. 4), Richard Elliott and Nick Jankel-Elliott quote a famous anthropologist as
describing ethnography as "deep hanging out" and lists its principles as follows:

"the first ... is that it entails the study of behaviour in natural settings, 'getting the seat of your pants
dirty … in the real world, not the library' (Fielding, 1993, p. 157). The second is that no adequate
knowledge of social behaviour can be developed without an understanding of the symbolic world of
the subjects of study, seeing the world through their eyes and using their shared meanings, the
empathetic process of verstehen. This involves learning the language in use: dialect, jargon, special
uses of words, neologisms. The third principle is that it requires extended presence in the field,
'long-term immersion in context increases the likelihood of spontaneously encountering important
moments in the ordinary events of consumers’ daily lives and of experiencing revelatory incidents'
(Arnould and Wallendorf, 1994). A fourth principle is that of participation in cultural life in order to
'walk a mile in their shoes' and develop an understanding of cultural/symbolic meanings and 'local
rules' (Hochschild, 1979)."
Research parameters

Ethnographic methods are qualitative, inductive, exploratory and longitudinal. They achieve a thick,
rich description over a relatively small area.

The actual process of data gathering is best conducted on an iterative basis, with the researcher
taking on what has been described as a "reflexive" role, in other words observing, reflecting, building
up a theory and then going back into the field and testing it. (This process has been described as
grounded theory.) The process of testing is essential, because of the inevitable element of subjectivity
in a research method where the researcher is the instrument.

There are a number of practical considerations with ethnographic methods (as there are with all
research methods):

Time. Studies are time-consuming to complete. If you are looking at making ethnography one of your
approaches for a dissertation, will you have sufficient time before the completion date? If part of a
major research project, will the project bear the costs?

Place. You need to make sure that you can get the cooperation of the organization you wish to
observe, and decide whether you want to look at the whole organization, one part of it or a
cross-section.

Data collection methods and triangulation

Most ethnographic research makes considerable use of participant observation, usually triangulated
with interviews, with "key informants" in particular. Triangulation is particularly important as one
method on its own is not usually reliable.

In addition to interviews, ordinary "informal" conversations, which are not like interviews in that they
don't have a particular purpose, although a questioning technique may be used, may yield invaluable
information. Much information may also be gained from other sources, notably:

Written documents, e.g. e-mails, policy documents, meeting minutes, organization charts, reports,
procedural manuals, "official" corporate material such as intranet, brochures, press releases,
advertising, web pages, annual report.

Corporate events and rituals, particularly the annual staff conference, Christmas party, etc.

Branding – logo and how it is applied, slogan etc. Branding is a particularly strong use of symbolism.

Site location, built environment, design, etc.

Indeed, one of the advantages of ethnography is that it allows for multiple data collection methods.
Another method used is that of the diary, which participants are required to complete (you will also
be completing a diary as part of your participant observation, see data collection). This may either
have set categories as in structured observation, or the participant may be required to keep a record
of their experiences (for example, their reactions to a training course) or of what they do.

Examples

In "Ethnography of an American main street" (Susie Pryor and Sanford Grossbart, International
Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 33 No. 11), the researchers used as data collection
methods 240 hours of participant observation, including working as a retailer, shopping, and
attending events (sidewalk sales, parades and art shows), which they triangulated with 60 field
interviews and 12 key informant interviews with retailers, and secondary data from the local media,
including news reports and video clips. Evidence was collected in the form of taped interviews, field
notes and photographs.

In "Observe, record, then beyond: facilitating participant reflection via research diaries" (Qualitative
Research in Accounting & Management, Vol. 2 No. 2), Kate Lewis et al. describe how diaries were
used to triangulate with interviews in a research project to find out about technological learning in
small dairy farms.

In "The human resource management practice of retail branding: an ethnography within Oxfam
Trading Division" (Stéphane J.G. Girod, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol.
33 No. 7), extensive participant observation was triangulated with ten, one-hour semi-structured
interviews and informal corridor interviews, together with a scanning of the company intranet.

References

Arnould, E. and Wallendorf, M. (1994), "Market-oriented ethnography: interpretation building and

marketing strategy formulation", Journal of Marketing Research, Vol. XXXl, November, pp. 484-504.

Fielding, N. (1993), "Ethnography", in Gilbert, N. (Ed.), Researching Social Life, Sage, London.

Hochschild, A. (1979), "Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure", American Journal of
Sociology, Vol. 85 No.3, pp. 551-75.

Malinowski, B. (1922), Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

Singh, V. and Dickson, J. (2002), "Ethnographic approaches" in Partington, D. (Ed.), Essential Skills for
Management Research, Sage, London.

Participant observation as an ethnographic data collection method

What is it?
Participant observation is one of the main ethnographic data collection methods.

The essence of participant observation is that the researcher observes the subject of research, either
by participating directly in the action, as a member of the study population, or as a "pure" observer,
in which case he does not participate in the action but is still present on the scene, for example
observing workers in a manufacturing plant or discussants in the board room.

In either case, the researcher observes, notes, records, describes, analyses, and interprets people and
their interactions, and related events, with the object of obtaining a systematic account of behaviour
and idea systems of a given community, organization or institution.

In interviews, the research instrument is the interview schedule, in surveys it is the questionnnaire. In
participant observation, it is the researcher and his or her eyes and ears, as well as sometimes voice
as he or she engages with the subjects in conversation. The data are recorded in the form of field
notes, tape recordings, photographs, video recordings.

Like other ethnographic methods, participant observation is very much based on the classic methods
used in early anthropology, by Malinowski and others as they studied particular populations, often for
years at a time taking detailed notes.

Again like other ethnographic methods, participant observation is usually inductive, and carried out as
part of an exploratory research phase, with the view of forming hypotheses from the data. It is often
connected with the grounded theory method, according to which researchers revisit the research
territory with deeper and deeper knowledge.

The strength of participant observation is its ability to describe depth (thick description) and to help
understand human behaviour.

Researcher roles

There is a continuum in observation techniques between the covert and the overt observer, and the
observer who participates completely in the activity and the one who is purely a "fly on the wall".
There are problems with all these approaches, but the ideal is to ensure that the maximum amount of
information is gained whilst at the same time retaining the maximum distance in order to ensure
researcher objectivity. It is possible to sum this up in the following matrix:
Which role is adopted would depend on the subject being researched, for example:

Complete participant. There are obvious ethical considerations of being part of a group and not
revealing your role as researcher who will subsequently write up the research study, but in some
circumstances revealing your role might prejudice the research, particularly if the subject concerns
something delicate such as the consumption of alcohol or drugs.

Complete observer. This might be appropriate to a situation where the subject is relatively large-scale,
for example observing people in a shopping mall or in a supermarket, or where revelation of role
might destroy the dynamics of small group behaviour, as for example watching the behaviour of
groups of shoppers. Incidentally in this role the researcher can also carry out quantitative, structured
observation.

Observer as participant. The disadvantage here is that although you participate in some way in the
activity, you lose the emotional involvement, but the advantage is that you can concentrate on your
role as a researcher. It might be used if you were, for example, observing people on a training course,
or users of an electronic courseware, where it was very important to understand the reactions and
mental processes of the participants rather than what they do.

Participant as observer. The advantage of participating is that you become fully part of the group, and
also you can experience directly what your subjects are experiencing. It is particularly useful when for
example you need to understand work practices or job roles.

Examples

In "The (unlikely) trajectory of learning in a salmon hatchery" (Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 17
No. 4), Yew-Jin Lee and Wolff-Michael Roth describe their 'participant as observer' research which
involves understanding how people learn in a particular setting. In order to do so, researchers
undertook various roles: "Collectively, the researchers participated with hatchery staff in numerous
activities such as the taking of eggs, seining in rivers, tagging, feeding fish, fertilizing lakes with
chemicals, taking measurements on fish and in the environment, sampling returning salmon, and
releasing smolts". It was only in undertaking these apparently routine tasks that researchers could
fully appreciate the expertise involved.

In "Ethnography of an American main street" (Susie Pryor and Sanford Grossbart, International
Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 33 No. 11), the researchers carried out 240 hours of
participant observation which involved working as a retailer, shopping, and attending local activities
and events.

In "Participant observation: a model for organizational involvement" (Journal of Managerial

Psychology, Vol. 9 No. 2), Gerald Vinten cites several examples of how going "under cover" was the
only way to uncover certain behaviours: fiddling in the workplace, cases of unconventional practice in
the workplace, posing as a watchqueen in public toilets in order to research homosexual behaviour,
and posing as a pseudo-patient in a US psychiatric hospital in order to observe treatment of
schizophrenics.

In "'Saying is one thing; doing is another': the role of observation in marketing research" (Qualitative
Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 2 No. 1), Jonathan Boote and Ann Mathews
conducted research into the siting of middle market restaurants in South London, looking at
consumer movements both around the citings and also in lunch outlets. In both cases, they used
observation techniques, in the one, time sampled consumer traffic counts, and in the other, taking on
roles of consumers and noting the types of other consumer. In neither case was their role disclosed.

There are other possible roles for the observer:

As facilitator and change agent, when he or she becomes involved not merely as a participant but as
someone who seeks to help subjects change some aspect of their world, for example in action
research.

As a narrator, describing what he or she has witnessed from a position of authority. The experiences
of someone who built up a company might fit into this category (for example, Alfred P. Sloan's My
Years with General Motors).

Other factors which might determine the type of role the researcher would choose are the amount of
time available, whether or not it was possible to get a position with the organization.

Location is also a consideration: the ideal is that this should be as natural as possible, but there are
times when an environment may be simulated (a supermarket for example) in order to set up precise
conditions, or as an experiment.

Structured observation

Structured observation differs from participant observation in that it is more detached, more
systematic, and what is observed often has a more mechanical quality. It is also a quantitative as
opposed to a qualitative technique, concerned with quantifying behaviour as opposed to obtaining a
rich description. It may use self completion diaries (as for example in an attempt to find out how
managers spend their time). The "observer" may also be mechanical – for example, the use of EPoS to
track sales, or a video camera may be used.

Example
Mintzberg's (1973) work on how senior managers spend their time is a classic example of the use of
structured and unstructured observation. Mintzberg first spent time in participant observation during
which he came up with categories which formed the basis for the activities in the coding schedules
which were given to the managers for them to record their activities.

Adavantages and disadvantages

Participant observation is not without its detractors, and is seen to have a number of disadvantages,
notably:

Because the researcher is the instrument, there may be difficulty in maintaining the necessary
objectivity. In particular, it may be difficult to maintain rigorous research practices as one cannot note
all points exactly.

Good participant observation takes up a lot of time (see point below on time sampling).

Participant observation requires an intimacy and an invasion of privacy which may be disruptive both
to the research process and also to the organization itself. On the other hand, concealing one's
identity is ethically questionable as it involves a deception.

Observer bias: the observer's own views and personal beliefs may impinge upon observations.

On the other hand, participant observation has some solid advantages some of which counter the
disadvantages.

It can provide very rich data and can be particularly good at revealing facets of human behaviour.

It does not rely on the words of the actors themselves, and is therefore not dependent on people's
ability to verbalize, and provides a source other than their own testimony.

Issues of time and researcher objectivity can be met by a careful use of sampling, whereby
observation is confined to particular locations and time periods.

All research techniques have inbuilt problems of bias: for example, the interviewer effect, and the
difficulty of formulating careful survey questions.

However, the best way of using participant observation in a useful and responsible way is to
triangulate it with other approaches (see Data collection methods and triangulation).

Applications to management research

Participant observation is based on the social sciences, particularly social anthropology, and in
particular on the premise that you go and study a different, and often remote culture. The appeal to
management research is that it can study the culture of a particular organization in depth. However,
in many cases it is simply not practical to immerse oneself for months at a time: the cost would be too
great, the organization may not be willing, and one cannot actually live with the workers. For this
reason, time sampling is often adopted. Here, the times at which observation takes place are carefully
selected.

Example
In "The human resource management practice of retail branding: an ethnography within Oxfam
Trading Division" (Stéphane J.G. Girod, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol.
33 No. 7), the observations were made at carefully chosen time periods, described as follows:

Extensive field note-taking on the spot and analytical reviews immediately after the working days
spent at Oxfam headquarters. In total, the author spent one full day a week from October to
December 2002. This participation gave him access to all internal induction and operational meetings
organized in the trading team with paid staff and volunteers.

Extensive field note-taking and comments after each of five participant-observation days at the Broad
Street Shop, Oxford (right before Christmas 2002).

(The above was triangulated with interviews and a study of the intranet.)

Participant observation has found a particular use in market research, for which it is a natural
technique as both are concerned with human behaviour. According to Mathews and Boote (1999),
participant observation is a good method under the following circumstances:

When the phenonmenon under study is easily observable, and occuring in public.

When it concerns a social process or mass activity, such as the disposal of household waste.

When the processes are subconscious, for example in a study of in-store music.

When it would not be desirable or easy for consumers to interact with the researcher, for example
with very young children.

Goulding (2005) also provides a description of ethnographic methods in the context of market
research.

The ability to study behaviour makes participant observation a useful technique in other areas of
management research where behaviour is an important factor. For example, where it is important to
understand behaviour as part of the job role, as in the case of the fish farm described above, and
where questioning people may not be sufficient, as their testimonies cannot for whatever reason be
relied on (lack of verbalization skills, embarrassment etc.), or in cases of consumer or lifestyle choice,
or in employees' reactions to change. It can also be of value in understanding symbolic aspects of
organizational culture, for example branding.

Data collection

Observations should be recorded as far as is possible on the day of the fieldwork, in diary form, and
should comprise the following:

Primary observations including:

Date

Time of day

Location
Actors present

Sequence of events, and any interruptions.

Secondary observations in the form of any statements by others about what you observed.

Experiential data as relating to your own state of mind, emotions and any reflections.

Circumstantial and background data about the organization, key roles etc.

References

Boote, J. and Mathews, A. (1999), "'Saying is one thing; doing is another': the role of observation in
marketing research", Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 15-21.

Goulding, C. (2005), "Grounded theory, ethnography and phenomenology: a comparative analysis of

three qualitative strategies for marketing research", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 39 No. 3/4,
pp. 294-308.

Mintzberg, H. (1973), The Nature of Managerial Work, Harper & Row, New York, NY.

Analysing, theorizing and writing up

Analysis of unstructured data

What distinguishes the analysis of ethnographically generated data is that the research process is
inductive and iterative. Unlike the neatly linear trajectory of some other research, when you construct
an instrument to prove a theory, and do not analyse until you have collected all the data, in
ethnographic research data collection and analysis may be simultaneous, while theories are formed
on the basis of some data and then tested and refined against further data. This process is known as
analytic induction.
When you begin to collect data, you will find very soon that you get a lot. This is the time to begin an
initial analysis. As you start the coding process, begin to look for groupings, based on frequency and
patterns of and in the data. As you refine your coding structure, check your assumptions carefully:
look out for data that don't fit the pattern, and for factors that might have weighted the evidence.
Eventually, however, you will reach a point where you are relatively confident of your coding
structure and you can begin to use it as a way of organizing your data.

There are a number of software packages – NVivo, QSR NUD.IST and The Ethnograph for example –
that can help here, or you may prefer to use an ordinary office package such as Word or Excel. Some
of the software packages also offer modelling facilities.

Whatever method you use, at this stage patterns will begin to emerge from which you will be able to
build theory.

Analysis of structured data

The analysis of structured observation data is different in that the coding schedule is established
before the start of data collection. In this case you either:

establish your own headings, which should be consistent with your research questions

follow an existing "off the shelf"coding schedule

use a combination of these approaches, modifying an existing schedule and perhaps putting in some
of your own headings.

Note that in the examples given below, which relate mostly to unstructured data, the researchers also
use the third approach.

Validity
The fact that data are situation specific and therefore not easy to replicate, together with the
possibility of observer bias, are threats to validity with unstructured observation. These threats can be
dealt with in a number of ways:

Checking the observations, and interpretations of them, with participants, as a form of triangulation.

Checking the coding structure, which can be by both the researcher him or herself checking against
emerging theory, and other researchers coding the data to see if they come up with similar coding
structures.

"Perspicacity" – the ability to abstract from the data general principles that can throw light on other
similar situations.

Example

In "The (unlikely) trajectory of learning in a salmon hatchery" (Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 17
No. 4), Yew-Jin Lee and Wolff-Michael Roth

and colleagues maintain the validity of their research by constantly revising their hypotheses until
they account for all known cases, progressive subjectivity (monitoring of the researchers' evolving
constructs) as well as checking the constructs against the participants themselves.

Theory building

The literature review is commonly done at the beginning of the research process. But with
ethnographic research, it often follows (at least some) data collection and analysis – because it is
connected with theory building.

In ethnographic research, the researcher is often compared with a journalist researching a story, and
looking for promising lines of enquiry. The difference, however, lies in the output: the researcher is
looking for a theory, and not a story. As the data are being collected and patterns start to emerge, so
may interesting lines of enquiry on which theories can be built.

The objective of the theory is not to predict, but to explain, to look for contextual structures and to
provide a context for events, conversations and descriptions. You are providing an explanatory
framework for the phenomena which you have been observing.

As indicated above, once you have formulated a theory you need to check it against the data, and
check the data against itself – how valid is it?

The theory also needs to be situated in the relevant literature, and have its own theoretical context.

Writing up

For a dissertation, you should follow the guidelines of your own university and check out other
dissertations which have used similar research techniques. A traditional approach, however, is
introduction, literature review, philosophical approach and methodology, findings, analysis,
discussion and conclusion.

For a journal article, you are best advised to look carefully at other examples of articles written for
scholarly journals, particularly ones in which you are thinking of publishing. (See our companion "
How to... find the right journal" in the Authors section).

Some examples

In "Ethnography of an American main street" (Susie Pryor and Sanford Grossbart, International
Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 33 No. 11), the researchers read through their
interviews and field notes several times "to develop a coherent sense of the whole body of data and
generate as many categories as possible". The next stage was to cluster emergent themes to look at
shared meanings across actions and events. Finally, the emerging theoretical framework was related
to the literature. A particular template was used but adapted to suit the framework as suggested by
the data.

In "The human resource management practice of retail branding: an ethnography within Oxfam
Trading Division" (Stéphane J.G. Girod, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol.
33 No. 7), data was codified according to a literature based template and also the themes that
emerged from the research, following which several main nodes were constructed – culture, paid
staff, volunteers, customers, structure, reorganization and identity.

In "Participatory group observation – a tool to analyze strategic decision-making" (Qualitative Market

Research: An International Journal, Vol. 5 No. 1), Christine Vallaster and Oliver Koll describe a
research approach using a variety of data collection methods including interviews, observation and
archival research. They then analysed the data according to a three-fold process of coding (i.e.
labelling data); memoing (i.e. theorizing about codes and their relationships); and developing
propositions.